RUSH (City Lights, #3)(13)

*

Annabelle laid a long lecture on me about company property and how it was to be distributed, (spoiler alert: not to homeless people), but she didn’t fire me. She was close, though. I could practically see her thinking of how the calendar would look with her nephew’s name written next to all my shifts.

And to add insult to my poverty-stricken injury, the restaurant was busy all day. Had I been working my regular station, I would have cleared $150 easy. As it was, I made less than half that with piddling to-go tips. I planned to get out of there as soon as two o’clock rolled around, and then Lucien Caron strolled back into the now near-empty restaurant.

Oh right. My hot date.

But I liked Lucien, and when he offered me a polite smile in greeting, I smiled back. He took a table near the window and waited.

“Who’s Vincent Price over there?” Anthony murmured as I started over.

“I just met him this afternoon,” I muttered back. “He works for Lake and wants to talk to me about something. Seems nice enough.”

Anthony grinned. “All serial killers do. It’s how they keep their cover. Cough three times if you need rescuing.”

I laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. There wasn’t anything creepy about Lucien Caron, though he did look a bit like Vincent Price: old-world charm from a bygone era. He also reminded me of my favorite grandfather who had passed away when I was ten. Grandpa Harold was always pulling quarters out of my ear. Lucien looked like he could drop a fifty and never notice.

I joined him at the window-side table and Anthony took our order. “I have an employee discount of sorts,” I told Lucien.

The older man waved his hand. A pinky ring with a sapphire the size of a dime glinted in the afternoon sun. “Given this restaurant’s policies on such things, safer that I pay, don’t you think?”

I shifted in my seat. “You’re probably right.”

“Besides, it hardly seems fair to this establishment to take more from them than perhaps I already will.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve asked you to meet with me, Miss Conroy, to talk a bit with you about some…possibilities.”

“Possibilities?”

He fell silent as Anthony returned with a black coffee and a cappuccino. When he’d gone, Lucien sat back in his chair and stirred his drink with a small spoon. “I am starting at the end, when I should be starting at the beginning. I’d like to get to know you and tell you something of my situation. Then we shall go from there, ?a va?”

“Uh, sure.”

“So.” Lucien sipped his cappuccino. “Tell me about yourself, Charlotte. What brings you to New York? Or perhaps you’re a native?”

“Oh, no. Montana transplant. I came here for school.”

“NYU?”

“Juilliard.”

Lucien’s blue eyes lit up. “Really? And are you a dancer? Actor?”

“Musician.”

“Of course. And what do you play?”

“The violin. At least, in theory. I graduated last June but…I haven’t been able to do much with it since.”

“I see. Yes, artists have a difficult time, often, taking their first steps toward greatness.”

“Uh, yes,” I said, for lack of a better answer.

“But a graduate of Juilliard,” Lucien said. “You must be quite talented. And what is it that you love most about the violin?”

I sat back in my seat. “I haven’t thought about that in a long time.” I started to toss off something safe, something about how I’d been playing since I was kid. Instead, I said, “I love that when it’s played right, the violin sounds as if the player’s soul is singing.”

Crap, where did that come from? But I realized that was the truth. At least for me. A truth I had been in danger of forgetting.

“But I don’t play that way lately.”

“You haven’t quite found it yet,” Lucien said gently.

I shifted in my chair. No, they called me a prodigy. The next Hilary Hahn… “Yeah, something like that.”

“I feel that you will, Miss Conroy. You seem to me a young woman possessing of a great heart. Would you say that’s true?”

“I’ve been told that before, by my family mostly. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t know, Mr. Caron.”

“Please, call me Lucien.”

“Okay, Lucien. I’ve been so busy trying to keep my head above water since I graduated. I guess I don’t really know what I am.”

He smiled as if this answer pleased him. “I find that honesty is a very undervalued and rare commodity these days.”

“Yeah, well, I try. I sort of don’t have a filter sometimes. A compulsive blurter.” I laughed shortly then cleared my throat. “Anyway…”

Lucien sipped his coffee then glanced around Annabelle’s. “This is a fine establishment. It must become rather busy at peak times, oui?”

“It can.”

“And to survive in this city, one requires a steady income.”

“Or two,” I said. “I work here, and as bartender on the weekends to help make ends meet.”

Lucien looked pleased. “Do you?”

I shrugged. “Rent’s not cheap, and neither was Juilliard. I’ll be paying student loans off until…”